Celiac Disease Prevalence in Patients with Chronic Noninflammatory Diarrhea in 2017

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder. Eating gluten, which is part of the cereals, can lead to intestinal mucosal injury and diarrhea. Although celiac disease is more common today with non-digestive symptoms, we sometimes encounter cases of chronic non-inflammatory diarrhea, which is one of the clinical manifestations of celiac disease. This study was performed to evaluate the prevalence of celiac disease in patients with chronic non-inflammatory diarrhea. Because diarrhea in celiac disease has distinct and efficient treatment we decided to do this study to evaluate the prevalence of celiac disease in patients with chronic non-inflammatory diarrhea.

This was a descriptive cross sectional study on 200 patients with chronic non-inflammatory diarrhea in Yazd in 2017. Stool exam and tissue transglutaminase Antibody (TTG Ab) was done for the patients; upper endoscopy and duodenum biopsy was done for the patients with high serum TTG Ab. Findings analyzed in SPSS.ver.17 statistical software. Chi-Square, t-test and Fisher Exact tests were used for statistical analysis. P-value less than 0.05 was considered significant.

Two hundred patients, including 93 (46.5%) men and 107 women (53.5%) participated in this study. The average age was 34.32 ± 17.84 years. Among these cases, 31 patients (15.5%) had celiac disease.  Among cases of celiac (16.1%), 15 (16.1%) were male and 16 (15%) were female. The relative frequency of celiac disease was the same in both sexes and in all age groups.

Significant portion of patients (15.5%) with chronic non-inflammatory diarrhea has celiac disease.